Upgrading T42's 60g Hatachi to 80g Seagate

[SteveA]

I am trying to upgrade my T42's 60g Hatachi (08K0849) to an 80g Seagate (ST98823A). The Seagate was listed as compatible with my T42 on the vendor's website (ha-ha).

I cloned the drives (both partitions) and all went well. With the new drive in an external housing, I confirmed that the files were cloned, and I ran scndsk and PC-Doctor to confirm the new disk was okay (after the cloning).

However, when I install the new drive and boot, all I get is a black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper-left corner. If I enter BIOS, Boot, and Startup, I can see the new drive listed in the list of bootable drives (in the same location as the "old" drive).

Any ideas? I see similar threads about problems with drive upgrades, but they seem to relate to an error message on boot. In my case, I can't boot to the drive.

Thanks for any help!

Steve

[SHoTTa35]

bootmanager repair is probably what you need. What you can do is try booting in safemode also and see if it does, it should install the new HD into the system and then you reboot it should be fine.

[BillMorrow]

its a simple fix..

that drive will work fine in your T42..

no time to sort out the problem, BUT i use acronis true image to clone drives..
works great..!

[teetee]

Have you checked to see if the boot partition (usually the first one) is set active(bootable)?

[SteveA]

Thanks, BillMorrow... any idea what the simple fix is? FWIW, I used EZ Gig II to clone the drives. It was very straight forward, both drives have the same files, the clone software came in a kit with a USB housing to do the cloning, etc. In any case, I'm pretty darn sure the clone worked... I'm pretty open to a the simple fix.

Thank you,

Steve

[SteveA]

Thanks Teetee. I'm a software guy... how do I see if the partition is set to boot. I'd assume it is, because the clone software is designed specifically to replace drives in laptops. I tried XP's Comptuer Management | Disk Management (when the "new" drive was in the external housing... I obviously can't access the drive when it is in the PC with the tools I have, and I'm trying to avoid buying Acronis, etc, 'cause the drive was only $40). Disk Management shows the drive as Healthy, options to change the partition, but no option to set a boot flag.

Thanks for your help,

Steve

[BeeJayEmm]

Steve,
You don't need to buy Acronis because Apricorn's EZ Gig II is an earlier version of True Image. I know because I use them both. You need to look at this link. Apricorn's FAQs say that to clone the drive on an IBM/Lenovo, you put the new drive into the ThinkPad and put the old drive into the enclosure before cloning. This is a different procedure than is in the instruction manual with the enclosure. I used EZ Gig II to clone to a new drive on a Compaq Presario and it worked perfectly. I'm sure it'll work for you, too. If you still have problems, call their Tech support.

[SteveA]

Thanks BeeJayEmm. I saw those instructions on the Apricom site, but strangely, the "old" drive won't fit in the EZ housing. The side of the drive reaches all the way to the end of the pins, which prevents the old drive from being plugged into the external housing.

I've considered doing an image copy rather than a clone, hoping that would correctly set the new drive to boot, and then resizing the partitions (which I assume would otherwise be the same size as the old drive?), but I'm a novice at this hardware stuff (writing software is a different matter...).

Steve

[house kitten]

That drive will fit into the Apricorn enclosure. I had the same problem. When you think that the drive is in as far as it can go, push a little harder. It fits but it is a tight fit. I had the exact same problem and I eventually got it to work. I ended up recloning and still had the same problem. When I gave up and inserted the disk to the laptop it worked to preform R&R I noticed that it was booting.

[SteveA]

BillMorrow, teetee, BeeJayEmm, and house kitten, THANK YOU!

Yes, when using the EZ Hard Drive Upgrade Kit to clone the drive, the old drive must go in the housing and the new drive must be in the computer. Care must be taken that you don't clone in the wrong direction (e.g., copying data on the new drive over your existing data).

Initially, I was not able to insert the old (Hitachi) drive into the EZ housing, because <blush> I didn't realize the thin metalic housing around the drive needed to be removed (and installed on the new drive).

After doing the above and rebooting the computer, it came up fine on the new drive.

Thanks again for your help. What a great resource!

Steve